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East Vancouver students climb Mt. Kilimanjaro

Tanzania field trip inspires teens

Over the spring break, Sean Jackson climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania with other teenagers who live in or have schooled in East Vancouver.

But the first story the 18 year old has been telling since he and 25 others on the Street2Peak trip returned Friday is about the moment he almost walked into a leopard.  

Jackson and three others were walking to the kitchen of their campsite in the Serengeti National Park when they turned to see a hyena 10 feet from them.

“As we turned around, there was a leopard that just came from behind. It just walked around us and back into the wild. It was really something else,” said the grinning Grade 12 student who attended Britannia’s Streetfront program in Grade 10 after being out of school for a year. “In the morning, there was a baboon going through the garbage.”

Jackson was one of 15 teens on the trip and one of 12 who have attended or are enrolled in the Streetfront alternative program at Britannia secondary, which focuses on physical fitness and outdoor recreation for students in Grades 8 to 10.

He was impressed by the perseverance, spirit and heart of the students, their chaperones and mountain guides.

“Our porters were dancing and singing when we came up to camp after a day of trekking,” he said. “I think that really motivated the students, to see other people work so hard for so little and not really [having] the same opportunities but still putting their all in and loving every part of it.”

Streetfront teacher Trevor Stokes noted Street2Peak climbers suffered dysentery, altitude sickness and hiked in temperatures that varied from 35 degrees Celsius in the day to five degrees below zero at night.

“So that’s at the top of Africa,” said Stokes during a slideshow of photos in Britannia’s packed auditorium Monday afternoon. “I’ve had three children born and I love them all dearly but the most emotional day of my life was, for sure, on the top of that summit.”

Stokes is proud Street2Peak students achieved their lofty goal after focusing on it for 18 months.

“It changed the dynamics of families,” he said, explaining some teens didn’t understand the momentousness of their undertaking until after they’d achieved it and returned to appreciate the support parents and guardians had given them.

He loves that the group was able to raise more than $100,000 for the trip and that the East Side alternative school students demonstrated to their previous schools, other students, the community and themselves what they can accomplish when they set their sights on a goal and work hard.

“It’s not where you come from, it’s where you go,” Stokes told the assembly. “And the only way that you get there is by putting your feet together and moving forward and having the confidence that you’re not going to give up.”

Six of the 25 Street2Peak trekkers were forced to turn back before they reached the peak because of altitude sickness. Jackson was one of them.

“Within an hour-and-a-half of reaching the crater, the top bit, I was sent down,” he said. “It was devastating.

“But it was rewarding, as well,” he continued. “It’s just interesting that I can deal with not reaching the top. It’s not exactly all about finishing, but it’s putting in the effort and really not giving up.”

Jackson said Brandon Kaine, the 16-year-old the Courier’s spoken to twice before, sailed to the top with a smile on his face.

“I know that I’m capable of doing something this big,” said Kaine, who entered the Streetfront program after having trouble focusing and skipping lots of school. “I know where I stand on what I can do.”

Street2Peak plans to travel to New Zealand in 2017.

crossi@vancourier.com

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